Have you ever felt powerless? As though you are no longer in the driving seat and not really sure if you ever were? No need to answer; it's part of the human condition.
We like to be in control—to know that the small plot of land we are in charge of, namely our own lives, are ours to groom, pull out weeds and plant seeds as we wish. But our neat little gardens rarely stay well manicured—before … [Read more...]

Why do we find it so hard to be kind to ourselves?
What is it we're afraid of?
We deprive ourselves when we make self-kindness the last thing on our agenda. And we deprive the ones we love of the best we have to offer them. Because how we love ourselves is how we love others.
What is self-kindness?
Self-kindness is looking in the mirror and finding something we like today rather than hacking … [Read more...]

"Your problem is you’re too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” - Ram Dass
If you had asked me a decade ago whether I loved myself the question would have baffled me.
Self-love? What does that even mean? Does anyone really love themselves? And if they do, isn't that the bedrock of egoism and navel gazing?
It wouldn't have taken me long to give you an answer; that is, if I was feeling like … [Read more...]

The art of busyness has become a competition (tweet that!)
The idea that "you can't possibly be as busy as I am," is continually implied in our daily conversations, as though the busiest people are somehow the most accomplished and successful.
I'm tired of busy, aren't you?
I'm tired that as a culture we are using it as an excuse to not show up, both for others and for ourselves. We … [Read more...]

"If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their … [Read more...]

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also harder to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
I'll preface this article by saying you won't find anything new about depression in here. No miracle cure, no breakthrough … [Read more...]